Ranunculus Repens - Weed of the Month

Time to do your first round of weeding. I saw lots of shotweed (cardamine hirsuta) starting out today. Here's the King County noxious weed site. Ranunculus repens is the weed of the month. LOL. Pretty funny. I have so much of it that I don't really even see it anymore. I don't even think of it as a weed.

http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/lands/weeds/kcweednews.htm

Welcome to my world, I have it everywhere, along with swamp gress, ad skunk cabbage or weed same same, I heard the more lime you use the buttercups will go away, so I was told.

This is one that is in an area of my property where RoundUp is the way to go.
The Cardamine pulls up so easy, but it can set seed when very small/young. Millions & millions & millions.....

And it shoots them into your face. Was just reading up on geranium robertii - 20 feet the seeds can shoot. Nice.

I'd love to be able to keep any of these bad boys out of my yard, but I'm afraid at this point it's just self-defense.

Guess what I spent part of the afternoon pulling, what a coincidence....some of those little suckers were only an inch tall but had flowers already...errr!!!

I've got the Geranium roberti, too, courtesy of my next door neighbor. She doesn't pull it up anywhere (She even has it in pots) so I'm always rooting out the little shoots. It does come up easily, though.

I have so much buttercup creeping through the grass that I might someday have a lawn of it. I have tried to control it around the blueberries, and now I know why they are so abundant and healthy in that area of the yard no matter how much I yank them out...no lime there at all.

The buttercups love it here, I can only keep the gardens in check, so to speak. I have 40 acers behind me of wetlands and I get all the weeds, lime does help

Good to know about the lime, Mary. Of course, then all my rhodies will be pink!!

The buttercups seem to love it everywhere and they produce with both seeds and runners, so they are very industrious. Apparently, though the runners die back in the winter, so now they're a little easier to pull.

Sue, there's an article on the site about the Herb Robert. The writer says that he finds them in his pots no matter what he does. I don't mind it so much, except that it looks so bad when it dies. And I love the smell - most people seem to not like it.

OMG - Herb Robert - aka Stinking Bob - is NOT good smelling - IMHO. That would be my primary reason for getting rid of it ....

As for the buttercup, I remember as I was toiling and removing some - a friend asked what I was going to plant in the open spaces - duh - and I instantly saw my folly. Why pull up a plant that was already established? I didn't NEED or WANT the area for flower beds - I just didn't THINK about BC being anything other than an invasive nuisance. Well, I no longer fight it!!!!!!!

Wannadanc - that's a great perspective. It is a happy plant that does well here. I just hate the idea that it's not a native and is crowding out some of our native species. Some day, I guess, we will be gardening with the 5 toughest of the noxious weeds. LOL

Stinking bob. I AM the only one who likes the smell . . .

I call it stink weed.

I don't mind the smell of stinky bob. I had one volunteer itself in a garden bed a few years ago when I didn't know what it was. I let it grow, as the leaves and flowers were quite pretty. I did pull it out before it went to seed, as by then I had discovered it was a noxious weed and invades the forested areas. Luckily, it is very easy to pull, unlike buttercup.

I only have a problem with the buttercup when it encroaches into my garden beds or threatens to choke the feet of my blueberry bushes and raspberries. If I were trying to get it out of the grass, I would soon be raving mad and hauled away. The "grass" is a large pasture with robust grasses a interspersed with weeds of many kinds. We are not talking about a genteel lawn here. I do go around and dig out the thistles however, as they are prickly and mean.

This message was edited Feb 20, 2008 11:23 AM

You guys will hate me but I miss stinky bob. I too liked its smell. Remided me of my childhood in the fungal forest of my michigan childhood.

I'm with you, Sof and Mauryhill. I like the smell - especially considering the alternatives.

I think it's a "reasonable" smell - it doesn't bother me too much, but it does have a stronger scent at certain times of the year. Then it's a bit much.
It does not jog any childhood memories - it just reminds me of weeding!

We used to go into the cedar swamps around my grandmothers and catch frogs, snakes, and throw them to the muskrat pretending to feed him. I guess we just loved nature back then. I wonder why I didn't grow up to be Steve Corwin.

Because you were meant to be blessed with the pleasure of knowing Sophie, and he wasn't, that's why!

This message was edited Feb 20, 2008 6:47 PM

Yes you have it. That was my purpose in life to experience the blessing of Sophie. Wow what a fortunate life I have had! Thanks Sophie.

I have this water quality ditch that follows along two sides of my property before it empties into a detention tank under my neighbors property. Its not bad until it gets into the backyard, where the sides of the ditch dominate my backyard, there is hardly anything flat.

Up in the front yard there is a patch of creeping butter cup that has survived in a very soggy portion of the ditch. About the first 10 yards are saturated soil from the first rains of winter to about august. If it was not a water quality ditch it would be classed as a wetland.

I just keep letting it grow, and try to mow it down so there are little to no flowers. If I eradicated it, I would have to get some reed canary grass to grow in there, and that's just another invasive. I've thought about creating a wetland garden, but it really needs to be mowed, and discarded as pollutants, especially oils and such, get trapped in it.

Buttercups.... grrrrr. I try to keep it in control in the most desirable spots of my beds. By pulling and pulling and pulling. Nice to know about the lime ~ I'll give that a try. I too have a rhodie in the spot where most of the BC are. Thanks for the tip!

Sanna